Many people have confused attitudes to the appearance of satellite dishes. The fact that a dish is a dish, rather than an object of similar proportions but different function, seems to make its appearance more offensive — more aesthetically displeasing — than would otherwise be the case.

I don’t want to get into all that, but I think anyone would agree that dishes, like anything that you bolt to the wall of your house, should be in as inconspicuous a place as is reasonable practicable. A general presumption has arisen that dishes shouldn’t be on the front wall of the house, and here someone has blindly followed this ‘rule’. But rules, as someone once said, are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. This dish would have looked better and would have been far less noticeable on the front wall. It would also have been much less likely to be blown off-beam in a storm.